Chloe's First
by Scream Fire
Summary: Chloe talked to the First all night... suggested rape and suicide *FINISHED* (by the way...Chloe the potential! come on people)
1. chapter 1

The sounds of Sunnydale were different than the ones in Toronto. She hadn't noticed it at first, but the difference was distinct. Toronto night music came from sirens and car alarms. The occasional train, babies crying, dogs barking, revving engines, people talking too loud. In Sunnydale the dark soundtrack was pure blackness, of screams you had to learn to ignore, of small animals squealing in pain.  
  
She'd nearly learned to ignore it, but every once in a while they still scared her. They were worse tonight, she'd been scared twice and it was only 8:00. Molly made fun of her every time she jumped from a sound. All the other girls seemed so much stronger than her, not to mention she was one of the youngest. She'd turned 15 a month ago, while she was still with her mother in Toronto. The only other potentials younger than her were Kiia, who was 14, Amanda who shared her birthday, and Alicia who was 12.  
  
She'd gone into Dawn's room to take refuge. Thought she'd be safe from everyone watching her change, maybe have enough time alone to collect her thoughts. She'd hardly thought of home since she came, couldn't bear it. It wasn't that she didn't like the United States. She'd actually been born in San Francisco, technically making her an American. But then her and her Mom had moved to Canada when she was five, when her Dad had left. She missed it so much, everything about it. For two countries that seemed so much alike, they were, in reality, completely different.  
  
Chloe put on her pajamas, her Tigger stuffed animal falling from it's hiding place inside her bath robe. She picked him up and placed him on the bed. An old friend from early childhood, it'd been a good six years since she'd slept with him by her side. But when Mr. Giles had come and told her she had to leave and to take only a few things, he'd just been sitting there on the shelf. So she'd picked him up and brought him. Molly made fun of her for that too.  
  
As she changed, a cold breeze wafted through the bed room. And a shiver ran up across her back. She turned. The window was closed, she known that anyway though. She'd closed it when she came in. But the breeze was still there. She shivered, pulled on her robe and wrapped it closer around her body. Why is it so cold? she thought This is California for god's sake. She wondered if houses in California even had thermostats you could turn up, probably not. She turned her back to the window and picked up Tigger. She paused and then brought him in close to her with her bath robe too, keeping her only friend warm too. She started to the door.  
  
All of a sudden, her whole body seemed to cease up for a moment. She teetered back on her feet for a moment, caught her balanced and tried to focus on breathing. What the hell was that? Letting Tigger fall she closed her eyes and shook her head. "Chloe" she looked up, the door stood in front of her, nothing else. "Behind you, Honey." Chloe forgot to breathe. She knew that voice. But it couldn't be. She knew that. Slowly, she turned. And the remaining air in her lungs shot out of her, making her gasp. "Hello, Chloe." 


	2. chapter 2

"Mom?" The woman who stood before her grinned, and Chloe's mind racked. This wasn't her mother, it couldn't be. Bringers had made sure she would never see her again. It looked like her, her long dark hair and tan skin the same hue. Her silver cross hanging from her neck, over the Our Lady Peace concert tee shirt she'd bought the year before. She was as there as she had been the day she died, as three dimensional as the body that had been lying in the kitchen of their apartment mere moments before Mr. Giles had come. But this wasn't her, she was nothing more than the visual.  
  
"Hi, honey." the woman began to walk towards her. Chloe stepped back, her heart shaking with her body.  
  
"You're not my Mother." The woman looked hurt, and a worried expression cast over her dark face.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're the first, you look like her. b-but you're not." Chloe's voice shook, the desperation to see her mother again beginning to over lap logic.  
  
"No, honey. I've only come to warn you."  
  
"No" The woman's eyes turned angry and she moved her face right up to Chloe's.  
  
"You'll listen to me, you'll listen to what I have to say. Things are coming, coming for you, Chloe. You need to get out of here. Nothing is going to save you."  
  
"I can save me, if I'm chosen.."  
  
Her mother laughed. "If you're chosen, honey you expecting to be chosen. Honey, slayers are visionary, strong people. And you just aren't."  
  
Chloe's heart dropped into her stomach. Make it angry, she thought, make it take another form. Then you'll know. She'd do anything to stop it using her mother this way.  
  
"You're the first." She said, the fear and anger washing off the look of shock on her face making the first grin. It'd known every emotion she'd felt for the last 3 days, but it amused her to see them try to display them.  
  
The woman rolled her eyes and stood up a bit straighter "Alright, alright I am." She grinned at Chloe. Who's jaw had clenched so tightly she was scared her teeth would crumble. "Man, usually the whole dead mother thing gets people. You're a smart one, I'll give you that. Too bad brains won't do you any good." Chloe stared intensely at a piece of lint on the floor. "You're Mother was smart too. And look where it got her, pregnant at 16, by some junkie who'd leave her. A worthless daughter who left her alone to be slaughtered by my Hell Bringers. She was smart too, but all she turned out to be was an idiotic whore."  
  
Chloe looked up at her with more hatred in she'd ever felt towards anyone. "Fuck you," The first gave her a pitying look  
  
"you don't even..."  
  
"We're gonna bring you down, you know." Chloe interrupted it. "Buffy and everyone else is gonna stop you. Buffy made that speech already."  
  
A mist fell on her Mother's dark hair and skin and Buffy now stood before her. "Oh Chloe," it said, "some of these girls are gonna die and there's nothing I can do to stop it." 


	3. chapter 3

"You're getting pathetic." Chloe shook her head, "I already know it's not Buffy saying that. You're the first. Not her."  
  
The first shook her head, "she did say it. And she was, of course, right. The one thing out of all those little speeches she made that made any sense what-so-ever was the dying part."  
  
"Would you just leave, I don't know why you came to talk to me, but whatever it is. It's not going to work... so go."  
  
Buffy's form shrugged, "you're sure she didn't say it?"  
  
Chloe said nothing, she just wanted to leave. She knew the first was stalling her, knew she had to go. But her legs were jelly, and the rest of her shook like it. The traces of fear left in her, even at a tenth their former size, were enough, she couldn't move. She had to get it to leave. But it just stood their, waiting.  
  
"I'm sure."  
  
And in a flash of blinding light, she was standing in a hazy version of the mid-afternoon. Outside, beside the house, facing the white siding. She rubbed her eyes and blinked. Where the hell am I? She thought. The feel of the grass showed her it wasn't a dream, the wind blowing behind her and clothes hanging off her. Noises came from the backyard. Still disoriented, she moved toward them. The true scene beginning to conceive in her mind.  
  
She turned the corner to be presented with her expectation. All the potentials, including a slightly dishevel looking half-version of herself, training in Buffy's backyard. I hardly remember this, she thought. She hardly remembered anything anymore, she wondered about premature Alzheimers. Every that was once vivid hung like a haze in the bowels of her brain. She remembered the training, making a mistake, Kennedy yelling, push ups, maggot. What had the mistake been? Why was she a maggot? She didn't remember.  
  
She breathed in and moved forward toward the veranda where Buffy and a man she didn't recognise stood. Their talk wasn't interesting, she seemed to be filling him in on things. She became bored, the slight mist in the air of the flashback seeping into her head as well.  
  
"Twenty push-ups. Maggot." The words rang out through the back yard and Chloe frowned. You're so weak, she thought, as her last-afternoon-self did the push-ups.  
  
The scene faded and she was back in Dawn's room, the form of the first as Buffy now sitting on the bed.  
  
"What was the point of that?" She asked it, "I thought you were gonna prove to me what Buffy said."  
  
It shrugged, "why would I do that, whether you believe me or not, she still said it. She still believes it. So what does it matter." 


	4. chapter 4

Chloe looked down, what was it trying to do? She'd gotten nothing out of that except the realisation the first could make her relieve memories. This, of course, was a very bad thing, but why this memory? All she'd felt from it was the hurt from being called a maggot, by someone whose rank seemed to depend on making out with Buffy's friend.  
  
She looked back up at the first. She wasn't going to play whatever game the first was trying to. She'd leave. "I'm going down stairs." Chloe shook her head and moved towards the door. Passing the first stiffly. It's head and glance moving with her.  
  
"Maybe..." the first started and in a flash it stood in front of her. Chloe froze again, the first so close her skin felt ice. "So many memories, so little time. We can't have you leaving."  
  
Chloe closed her eyes, hoping it'd go away "I know them all. Secrets, memories, pain...pleasures. But which one to choose..." She kept her eyes closed, but she felt a change. A difference in the air. Drafts passing by her body. The smell of pizza wafting through her nose. She opened her eyes.  
  
Rocks dropped into her stomach when she realised where she was. Even though in a way she'd known from the minute the first had said it knew everything. Her sight now was identical to the freeze-frame out-of-body memory burned on her brainpan.  
  
the room, at this point, was cheerful. Sun streaming into the room through crack between the window frame and edge of the drapes. But Chloe could taste what was about to happen. Her and her mother's apartment. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 8:05 pm, eastern standard time. August. 33 degrees Celsius. 1999. An eleven year old Chloe sits on the couch. Her hair then long is partially plaited into small braids done by her friend Sarah the day before. Teletubbies blares on the television. Baby Chloe's transfixed, starring at the screen. 15 year old Chloe swallows. She moves toward the other her. The many words in her throat choking her. "Leave."  
  
She breathes. Pain worse than the aches in her arms after doing 20 pushups coursed through her body.  
  
She reaches out to the girl. 11 year old Chloe looks up at the clock. I remember you, old Chloe's thought spring, where did you go? The door of the apartment opens. And old Chloe pull back her hand. She doesn't look at the door.  
  
Little Chloe does. "Hey Sam." Her mom's boyfriend, disgustingly cliché. Old Chloe grimaces. "Where's Mom?" She asked. Disgustingly naive.  
  
"She's not here?"  
  
"No"  
  
Little Chloe looks back to the TV. And old Chloe looks to the man at the door. Six feet, faceless, medium blond hair, black t-shirt, jeans. He was nervous. Old Chloe's heart raced. Sweat rolled on his forehead. "Where was Lynn supposed to be?" he asked  
  
"Fuck you." old Chloe spits out.  
  
Little Chloe has a milder reaction. "I don't know. Mr. Barry, I think, one of the old perverts."  
  
The Sam nods and looks around. Sweat pours off of him. He goes over and sits on the couch. "Like this show?"  
  
"Not particularly?"  
  
"Can I ask you something." He turns to look straight at Little Chloe. Old Chloe's face stretches out. Little Chloe nods.  
  
"Do you know what you Mom does?"  
  
Both Chloes are now giving him the same look. She pauses. "She's a prostitute. Until she can sell her writing."  
  
Sam nods, and smiles. Both Chloes feel sick. "She's a whore.  
  
Little Chloe shakes her head violently. "Whores walk around on Jarvis street wearing trashy clothes in the middle of the night. She doesn't do that."  
  
"She has sex for money. It's the same difference."  
  
Little Chloe looks down. I should have known, I should have ran. Sam ran his hand through little Chloe's hair. Little Chloe's eyes shot open. She tried to focus on the Teletubbies. "You gonna go into her line a work when you're older?" He whispered it in her ear. She shook her head, still focussing on the bright colours of the TV.  
  
His nervousness, as she remembered, was gone at this point. "But it'd be such a waste, to let you just ruin your potential." He takes her hand and starts to guide it.  
  
Old Chloe can't take it, she scrunches down into a ball. Leaning her back up against the couch. Then realizes what's happening on the other side a rolls to the floor. She hears little Chloe scream and the volume of the Teletubbies. Drowning out the sound with Po, and Tinky Winky. Old Chloe covers her ears and bawls. Small faint pleas and the blaring sound of the second playing of a video about 2 kids making key chains soundtracks. And Dawn's room is around her once again. 


	5. chapter 5

She stayed in her ball. The first moved and crouched beside her.  
  
"Hey." it said, a sweet voice she didn't recognise in her ears  
  
her eyes squeezed shut, thick thoughts she didn't want to think about flowed through her head. Get away from me. Fear like never before and vomit rose up her throat. She wouldn't open her mouth. Burying her head in her knees, hot tears burning her face she shook her head.  
  
"Bring back memories of good times?"  
  
Chloe still said nothing. She just needed to stay here and pretend it wasn't there and it wouldn't be there. She just had to pretend, false breathing shot down her neck. She felt coldness over her shoulders, as the first moved behind her.  
  
The thickness flowed through her brain. She could feel it all again. The weight on top of her, his hands, his dick, his lips. She heard her own screaming in her ears. She felt the pain of telling her mother nothing was wrong, she was just tired. The sick feeling in her stomach when he'd come into her bedroom again. Night after night. The scent of her mother still on him.  
  
Her brain was complete out of it now. Dawn's room and visions faded in and out. Tigger was still beside her she grabbed him and squeezed him to her. Her heart beating like a snare drum. Sending hisses of pain though her body.  
  
"Remember when she found out. She regretted having you that day you know. She cried for her boyfriend not being faithful to her. She hated you."  
  
Chloe still mute went into the fetal position on her side. "Hate lives, evil lives. Slayers can fight demons, but they can't fight me. Emotion lives above mortals and immortals. If you fight it will be a losing battle."  
  
Chloe still couldn't think. Not even enough to tell what shape the first had taken. She stood up, Tigger was left on the ground. The first continued.  
  
Nothing you do.  
  
She moved to Dawn's bed and took off a sheet.  
  
Everything you do.  
  
She threw the sheet over a rafter. Made sure it was tight.  
  
I will live on. You'll never stop me from talking. Sometimes hear me but I'm there always.  
  
She put a loop in it and used her arms and pulled herself up, and looped it around her neck. Still holding on.  
  
Evil lives. Forever.  
  
She let go. Gasping her last breath as the loop snapped her neck. She swung there, Tigger still lying on the floor. She other clothes in a pile. She wore her pajamas to die. The first grinned.  
  
In a flash she it was Chloe. Her dark hair and purple shirt from the day before. She smiled and sat on Dawn's bed watching the swinging corpse.  
  
"Finally"  
  
and laughter filled the room. 


End file.
